BREAKDOWN
by Lilian85
Summary: Rose finally snaps after the last hearing of her trial. One-shot.


_This one-shot was running around in my head for a while now and I just had to write it down. I'm sorry for the delays in my other stories, but I promise to continue with those now. Thank you and enjoy!_

**B**** R E A K D O W N**

„WHAT?", Lissa screeched at the Guardian, standing in front of her, blocking the entry to the cell Rose had been held in for the past weeks. "What do you mean with the trial had already started?"

"The prisoner has been picked up about one hour ago, since the trial has already started half an hour ago." The Guardian stated, never one letting his mask down.

Softly Christian put a hand on her shoulder and turned her around.

"You know Rose. She's probably only done that to protect us. Let's head back to the court, maybe we can still get in." Christian tugged on his girlfriend, to follow him. He knew it wouldn't lead to nothing, screaming at the Guardian in front of them.

"Yeah, let's go." She sighed in defeat, making his heart clench. If he had only known a way to make her happier.

* * *

_Meanwhile at court__- DPOV:_

"Mrs. Rose Hathaway, you're being charged for the murder of our beloved Queen Tatiana. How do you charge yourself?" The judge looked down at her, only asking this because of the formal way. When Rose didn't look up nor spoke up to the judge, Abe Mazur her father and lawyer answered instead:

"Not guilty." He said, full of confident. His act gave me the impression, that the old man might have something up his sleeve. I could only hope so, knowing deep down in my heart that it would completely destroy me again, to see the love of my live being killed for something she couldn't and wouldn't have done ever. It pained me deeply to see her sitting next to her father, with a pale face, her wonderful hazel eyes that have lost its shine of laughter and joy looking nowhere and her shoulders being slumped down in sign of defeat. Obviously Rose had lost all her will to fight, which let my anger rise for a short moment.

But I would have to keep myself in check to not give anybody of the attending people a sign of my feelings for Rose, so I put my Guardian mask back in place, but kept my eyes focused on Rose's familiar face.

"Well," the judge said, "this will now be the last hearing before we will decide on your sentence." The judge seemingly was very sure on the outcome of this trial and to be honest, it didn't look very good for Rose. Again my eyes wondered to her father. He confidently leaned back in his chair, rustling through some papers and obviously paying no real attention to the judge whatsoever.

"Does the prosecution have to say anything more?" the judge asked the lawyer of the court.

He smiled at her smugly, slowly getting up and looked at Rose for a short time.

"Well, I know that Mrs. Rose Hathaway is guilty in all points. Our evidence proves this and she didn't have anything to prove otherwise. We, as the prosecution, call for the highest possible sentence: the death penalty."

There was an audible gab going through the audience, even some chatter started. My eyes where fixed on Rose's beautiful face, but there were no movement when the prosecution layer called out for the sentence. It seemed to me, that Rose didn't care anymore what happened and this pained me more than her screaming at me. The hands behind my back turned into fists. I couldn't understand her. Everybody who loved her was fighting to keep her alive, and Rose? Rose didn't say anything, she didn't even defend herself. She had totally given up on everything and everybody.

Forcefully I relaxed my hands again. It wouldn't help anybody if I would knock some sense in her. And even if only to see her eyes sparkling with pain and hatred towards me as they had done the past weeks.

"Does the defence have to say anything else?" the judge now turned towards Rose and Abe.

When Abe stood up, he gathered some papers from his desk and slowly walked up towards the judge.

"Yes, indeed." He was ruffling through the papers as if looking for something, but I saw that it was just an act. The old man certainly had something up his sleeve and he enjoyed it. Slowly my heart started to swell with hope again.

"Just before the trial, a woman stepped up to me. Her name is Shelby Ardmore."

When Abe said that, he looked pointedly at the prosecution lawyer, who visibly flinched, before putting his arrogant smile back in place.

"Mrs. Shelby Ardmore is the prosecution laywer's assistant and she gave me a file with confidential material."

He paused in his speech to get everyone's attention. The prosecution lawyer started moving in his seat, obviously not feeling well with the turn of the trials. Rose hadn't moved at all, but was still staring into nothingness.

"In this file is the original protocol, in which Rose Hathaway states that her stake had been stolen. The Guardian Council confirmed this."

The prosecution lawyer stood up suddenly, grinning widely.

"Well, I would have done that too, after I've murdered someone."

Oh, I really started to get being annoyed with his attitude. Did he really think that Abe was so stupid to bring such evidence forward that would even strengthen the prosecutions side more? I just really hoped that it was something that would get Rose out of harm's way. The sooner the better.

"The protocol is dated two days before the murder happened." Abe answered with his voice even and controlled. The twinkle in his eyes gave it away, that he enjoyed this far too much. So the evidence must be waterproof. My hope rose.

"But then she could have gotten a new stake made. It's not difficult." The prosecution's lawyer only was hitting on guesses; otherwise he would have never come up with this objection.

"Ever body knows that it takes at least two weeks to make a new stake for a Guardian, that's why they are so rare and heavily guarded by their owners." Abe retorted calmly. It was obvious that there was no chance to talk against this. "But I would be more interested as to know how this important file got to your desk and you never even mentioned it. To me it seems like fraudulent conversion of evidence and this is against the law." Abe said, looking at the prosecution lawyer. His face was absolutely emotionless. "First semester of law school." He added dryly.

Rose still was sitting emotionless in her seat. Even now, that it looked much better than a few minutes ago, she hadn't moved at all. Fear slowly crept up my spine. I had the terrible feeling that something wasn't right with her at all and I just wished for this to be over soon.

I turned my head to watch the judge and slowly let my eyes wander over the faces of the jury. All of them where looking not quite happy with the sudden change of direction in this case, but none of them could ignore the evidence. Even if this was no real evidence, Rose deserved the chance of the doubt.

The judge obviously was as shocked as everybody else. Nobody had expected that any evidence of Rose being not guilty could come up now. But in her job as a judge she had do give everybody a chance, even if everybody else had convicted Rose as guilty already.

"Why didn't you tell me about the new evidence earlier?" she asked, looking at Abe above the rims of her glasses.

"I've only gotten this information from Mrs. Ardmore a few minutes before the start of this final hearing." He looked at a young lady sitting in the front row of the audience. Her checks blushed a little bit when all attention turned towards her.

"Well then, I ask the prosecution why they held such important information back all during the hearings?" the judge now turned her gaze towards the prosecution lawyer who slumped back in his seat.

"I didn't know that this was on my desk." He tried weakly to get out of this. Everybody knew that this would be his last day as a lawyer.

"Hm," the judge said, showing that she didn't believe on word, "well then, let's continue. But let me tell you that I don't like such surprises in my court room." Her gaze turned to Abe again. "Do you have anything else to say, Mr. Mazur?"

"Yes, I do indeed. I've already informed the prosecution about this evidence." He said to the judge and waited for her nod to continue.

"This evidence I have now also proves that Mrs. Hathaway could never have murdered the Queen. As we all know, Queen Tatiana had been murdered in her own private chambers. And we also know the date and the time plus minus 2 hours, as it were confirmed by the forensic doctors." He paused again to let everybody built a picture of the situation. "I wonder why nobody had tried to find out why Mrs. Hathaway always had claimed to never have been near the private chambers of the Queen while the murder happened. I can tell you why. She was nowhere near the Queen, even not at the court."

He turned around to the prosecution lawyer as he jumped up to cut his interruption off.

"Yes, I know that we didn't have any alibis for her to prove what she had testified, but I have just found a video tape, which proves that Mrs. Hathaway had been nowhere near the court at all. In fact, she had been at the house of the Dragomir family, together with her friends like she had said before." With that said, a court assistant entered, pulling on a wagon with a TV screen and video player behind him into the room. The lights where dimmed a little bit and soon the tape showed everybody a clear picture of Rose and Lissa in the living room of the Dragomir Estate, with the date of the day when the Queen had been murdered. Even the time fit.

Seeing that I knew we had won and gotten Rose out of the mess. Fighting back tears of relief, I turned to look at my _Roza_ again. Still she hadn't moved, her eyes weren't even set on the screen and if I wouldn't hear her shaky intake of breath from time to time, I wouldn't be so sure if she was still alive. I had to restrain myself from moving those few steps separating us to her and engulfing her in a hug just to see her move. But I knew that the torture would be over soon and then I would try to talk some sense into her. I even had made up a plan what I would say to her apart from the long overdue apology of my behaviour.

The end of the hearing went by in a blur. After the jury had met in a separate chamber and decided on the sentence, they came back out and spoke Rose not being guilty of the charges. But they told Rose, that she couldn't be a real Guardian, as long as the real murderer hadn't been found.

I found it not very fair to ask her to step back again after she had been charged for the wrong reasons and to stay behind, not doing what she had trained for for years. But I guess this was the best we could get even though it meant for Rose to lose Lissa as her charge. Probably forever. But they could still be together which surely was better than staying in prison for the rest of her life.

When the court room emptied, Rose still hadn't moved at all. The only thing that changes was the paleness of her skin. I never really thought it possible for her to get paler, but she did during the last minutes. It frightened me even more that even now she wasn't moving at all.

When Abe had packed up all his stuff, he turned towards her.

"Rose, it's over. We can go now." She still didn't move, but I saw the shaking of her small figure which was the only sign she gave away.

"Abe, she is about to break down. We should get her away from her where nobody can see her." I said, already having Rose pulled out of her chair and walking quickly towards the doors of the court room. When we reached the door, the princess, Christian and Adrian came running towards us, but haltered in their steps when they saw my look of determination and Rose's pale face.

* * *

All I felt was the numbness inside of me. It was everywhere: in my legs and arms, in my brain, in my soul and even in my heart. Too many people have hurt me during the last weeks and month and it had become nearly unbearable for me to go on and act as if the old Rose would have never been broken. But I knew that it was too late for me to get repaired again and therefore the old Rose would never return. I was a new person now, thanks to everyone who had caused me pain.

I knew that today was the day of my life on which somebody else would decide about my sucking life. Whether I would live or die. Honestly, I did prefer the latter because this would be the only way to cope with the feelings of pain and rejection, instead of continuing my life in a small cell behind bars being gawked at like an animal in the zoo. I would always depend on other people to bring me some food, allow me to take a shower; hell even if I have to pee I would always have to ask someone.

And then there would be my friends.

Lissa mainly. She surely would spend every minute down with me, trying to lighten up my mood and telling me, that it wasn't that bad. Yeah, right, no sarcasm there.

Christian would tag along with her from time to time, throwing some witty remarks at me. But when they would finally hook up again, Lissa becoming busy with life at court and Christian maybe with looking after their kids, I would be alone again. Counting tiles on the floor or maybe even playing cards with the Guardians.

Adrian would surely come by more often since we were still a couple. Technically, but not connected by love. Because I could never love him the way he wanted me to. I would never be able to, since my heart had been ripped out of my body painfully.

And now to the person who had done this. Dimitri Belikov. I owed him so much because he had shaped me into a person to whom so many people were looking up to. Well, not right now but they used to. Even my mother had been very thankful for me to become a serious adult. And I had given into the temptation to give my heart to this man. Yeah, I did love him back then and I still do, despite of the hurtful words he had been throwing at me at the church. _Love fades, mine has_. It still hurt to think about those four words that had made my world fall apart within seconds. And now he was her, standing only a few feet away on the wall, with the task of guarding his former student, being accused of having murdered the queen. It must be awesome for him to show Lissa how reliable he was now.

I didn't really follow the hearing, since I knew that it would be worthless. Abe had told me only minutes ago that he had found some proof that would change the jury's mind and show that I couldn't have done that. He had sounded so happy then so I didn't' tell him that I wouldn't have a problem with the death sentence. Not at all. On Contrary. It would solve those many problems I would be facing getting out of this alive. I certainly wouldn't be allowed to be Lissa's Guardian after everything that had happened, I probably wouldn't even be allowed near her. I wouldn't be able to still have a relationship with Adrian since the feelings weren't mutual and I also wouldn't be able to stay close to Dimitri anymore. Which one of those hurt more? I honestly don't know.

The torture of being so close to Dimitri made it easier for me to take my thoughts off the hearing so I didn't know what was going on. The only time I listened was when the jury re-entered after voting about my sentence and Abe – my father – pulled me off of my chair. I had been charged "Not guilty" and hell, I wasn't satisfied at all but it was too late now. Bye bye death!

I felt the trembling of my body as soon as my father talked to me. Was it really over now? And where do I go now? Life was just awfully unfair to me and I really started to hate it and everyone it involved. Yes, even Lissa.

I still was so zooned out that I didn't hear a word that had been said, but I suddenly felt being jerked out of my seat and moved quickly towards the doors. Did my legs really move or did someone – wait, I knew that aftershave too well – Dimitri just carry me? Because I certainly didn't have any intention to move. All I wanted to do was to be left alone so I could spill those tears that were tugging on my eyelids to be shed.

When my brain started to kick in we were already outside the building and Dimitri was pulling me into the beautiful garden a little aside the main buildings. When he let go of me I felt my knees buckle and quickly hit the ground. I welcomed the pain coming along with my fall because I was really afraid of spilling those tears in front of everyone.

But I even was too weak to hold those back and I let the sobs take over my body, putting my arms around my middle to save me from breaking apart. I felt the wind cooling my eyes as they were wide open but I couldn't see anything. I didn't want to see anything. All I want was to get rid of this pain that was slowly breaking me apart, starting at my heart and soul. The sobs were getting stronger now and I heard myself crying out loud. My whole body was shaking in anguish and my face was wet with tears. But the worst was this excruciating pain I felt ripping my heart out in shredding it into pieces.

"Rose." I heard Dimitri whisper softly behind me, wrapping his strong arms around my shoulder. "It's over now."

I shrugged him off. "Don't touch me." I snarled at him, spinning around. Seeing his shaken face pulled the trigger and I felt the urge to hit something or someone. The old Rose would have just punched him into the face but the new Rose did something totally different: she butt out of the possible fight and stood up.

For the first time today I took in my surroundings and the people watching me anxiously. Now it was my time to return some of the pain they all had loaded onto my shoulders which had caused me to break down under the sheer amount of it.

"So now you all stand here, watching and pitying me. Look, poor Rose just can't take it anymore. It was bound to happen sometime, I mean look at her!" I snarled, mimicking different voices. "Yeah, I know what you all are thinking and you know what? I don't care! I did a long time ago, but not anymore. You wanna know why?" I asked with a deadly calm voice, looking at everybody. "Because now is my time to give some of the pain I'm feeling back to you."

I let my gaze wander, before it fell onto my first victim: Lissa.

"Sweet, sweet Lissa. Always the nice and smart one, right? She couldn't harm a bird. You know what? This is a lie, because you hurt me all time. Every time you're using your magic, the darkness nearly kills me. Every time I'm changing into a person full of hatred, loathing and the will to kill. Have you ever thought about this? That maybe you could help me with that? But no, sweet Lissa only wanted to help, right? Guess what, I am the only person that really needed your help and you didn't care to ask once how I was coping with all of this. Not once. Some awesome friend you are!" Right now I really wasn't in the mood to see the tears escaping her wonderful blue eyes. So I turned towards my new victim: Adrian.

"You. You claim to love me but have you ever asked yourself if you're not only in love with a picture you've created? I told you from the beginning that it would take time for our relationship to blossom but what did you do? You kept on pushing me into sleeping with you and hell, you even talked about marriage! Do you ever imagine what it was like for me? I promised you to give it a try, that is right. But I also told you not to push me and you did. Constantly. So here is my answer: No, I don't love you, Adrian. I never have and I never will." Seeing the shock on his face didn't really bother me. I needed to get this out, not caring whom I hurt.

"Christian. I have thought about you for a long time, but actually I couldn't come up with something. I like you're wit because it always helped me. I know you're a person I can always rely on you and that you take good care of Lissa. So I really can only say one thing. Thank you!"

With only one person left, I turned around to face Dimitri.

"You. I never thought I could be judging a person as wrong as I did with you. I really loved you, you know? It was my heart I gave you and what did you do? Stomping on it while laughing in my face. _Love fades. Mine has_." I repeated his words.

"Lucky bastard. I really hope I could say the same about my love, but I can't. I have always loved you, I do right now and I know for sure that I will always love you no matter what. My love will never fade. But do you know what hurts mostly? Your indifference. I followed you to Russia to keep a promise we've once given each other, I even met up with your family to tell them the sad news. Then I accepted you being a Strigoi while you held me hostage. If it helps you, I wasn't too weak to fight, well not because of blood loss but because I still was in love with you. Then I tried to figure out a way to turn you back and end your soulless life. And how did you thank me? By telling me it was all for nothing. I didn't gain anything out of this whole thing, but I'm the fool that paid everything. I'm really sick of this. I hope you're happy now as you've everything you've ever wanted. I'm out of this whole game now because I'm so sick of it. Good bye, Dimitri Belikov."

With one last glance at everybody I used to make my world, I turned around towards the building. I still felt tears sliding down my face and my broken heart wouldn't stop bleeding and hurting. But time would heal it. Maybe. I hoped so.

Before I could reach the building, I heard footsteps following me and with a sigh removed the tears with the back of my hand before turning around.

"What do you want, Dimitri?" I asked in a defeated voice.

"I'm sorry, Rose. I know I've been an ass during the past weeks and I even lied to you. But do you know why? Because I was so ashamed of myself about what I had done to you. I could hardly sleep at night, seeing your big hazel eyes staring at me while I drank your blood. I enjoyed keeping you weak and this is something I can't live with. To be honest with you, my love had never faded. I only wanted you to give up on me so I could be alone in my personal misery. I love you, Rose and I'm not happy with the situation. I don't want to be Lissa's Guardian when you're not at my side. You're the only person in this world I would trust without doubt because you're proving to be the strongest person I know every minute of your life. You're not only strong in body but also in mind. I know that you have to fight to keep the darkness at bay every second but I'm begging you: please let me help you. I love you, Roza, I always have and I always will."

I was speechless. I didn't know what to say because this was something I hadn't been expected at all. I could only stare at this man, standing in front of me with his deep brown eyes, practically begging me to take him back. And I hate to admit it, but I was absolutely willing to take him back because he was the key for my healing process.

Without thinking twice, I stepped towards his larger body, framed his face with my hands and kissed him deeply n his lips. As soon as we connected, his arms wrapped around my smaller frame and pulled me even closer. This was my heaven. Finally I felt home again, because the man that holds my heart in his hand was finally back in my life.

"I love you, Dimitri Belikov." I whispered, before kissing him again. Now my heart could heal again.

**T H E E N D**

_Thank you for reading. Please tell me what you think with a review. _

_Lilian85_


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